51. The Last One Standing
Chapter 51
The Last One Standing
V ittoria’s Home - Syracuse, Sicily
April 21, 2018
Midnight (Day of Death)
The battle ignited before Sonya and Shakespeare could launch their attack. Sophie leaped into the air. Her body glided on an unnatural wind that seemed to carry her longer than physics would allow. Sonya summoned her fiery dark energy and stepped back as she braced for the inevitable strike. The forest itself felt alive, its twisted branches whispering the score as the battle began.
Sophie landed with predatory grace and spun into action. The rapid motion of her spin unleashed a barrage of dark, energy-infused blows. Her kicks and slaps sent Sonya staggering off the path, deeper into the heart of the dark forest.
Shadows clung to Sophie, wrapped around her like living armor. Each strike came faster, sharper, and more vicious than anything Sonya had ever experienced. Sophie inflicted a cut across her face, delivered a powerful kick to her gut, causing her to spit up blood, and compelled her to engage in defensive maneuvers because of her rapid strikes. This wasn’t just a fight—it was domination.
“He’s mine bitch! I’m taking him back to hell with me,” Sophie snarled.
Sonya fought back hard and fast with counter kicks and fisted blows. Sophie’s red hair flared like flames in the wind, and her eyes gleamed with a hatred that bordered on madness. It was her ghastly face and stitched together neck that made her beauty monstrous.
Sophie delivered the hardest kick to Sonya’s chest she’d ever experienced in her warrior existence. Sonya’s back slammed against a tree. The bark bit into her skin. Pain radiated down her spine, but she couldn’t afford to let it slow her. Not now. Not ever. Sonya dropped to her hands and knees as Sophie stalked her down. Sonya stood. She held herself by one arm around her waist. She staggered backward, her breath ragged. A growl of defiance escaped her lips.
Kaida, my Goddess, strengthen me…
Sophie stopped.
The dark wind energy that she seemed to summon released her and soaked into the earth as Sonya's eyes closed, and then opened with an internal bluish flame glowing within. The same dark energy that had disappeared snaked up and all-around Sonya, becoming her new force of energy. She smirked at Sophie. “Bring it bitch!”
Nearby, Shakespeare grappled with Raven. The two consiglieri circled each other, the heavy silence between them broken only by the sound of their feet moving through the underbrush. Shakespeare could hear the battle between Sonya and Sophie, and he ached to turn to defend Sonya. Instead, he looked over his once-friend’s grotesque form. Phoenix must have killed him in Vegas. Raven’s head, only recently reattached, moved unnaturally—his neck still half-severed was held together by crude stitches.
“Raven,” Shakespeare muttered as he dodged a swift punch. “This isn’t you.”
Raven’s response was nothing more than a snarl, his once-human voice drowned in the abyss of dark magic that had bound him to Phoenix’s will. He swung out with deadly precision, his movements sharp, brutal—there was no trace of the brotherhood they once shared.
Shakespeare fought back, battling with his rage over the gut-wrenching hurt because of the betrayal of Phoenix, who had reduced a consiglieri to some blood beast puppet. Raven landed a vicious blow that sent Shakespeare stumbling. The pain was sharp, but the betrayal? That cut deeper.
“I’m your brother!” Shakespeare roared. He caught Raven’s next punch and twisted his arm with a brutal crack. Raven’s scream was inhuman, a mix of agony and rage. To Shakespeare’s surprise, his zombie state gave him an extra amount of supernatural power. He threw Shakespeare back with unnatural strength.
Shakespeare’s feet barely touched the ground before Raven was on him again, moving like a ghost in the night. Shakespeare struggled to find a way—any way—to win. Then he saw it. The stitching that held Raven’s head together—loose, vulnerable. It was his only shot. Decapitate him for good.
Domencio leaned heavily on the much smaller Maman Julia as they made their way through the hall. Her presence felt real, though how she manifested her physical state was a mystery for later. For now, having her near brought him comfort.
They stopped at a door he had never paid much attention to. As soon as they reached it, a bone-crushing wave of exhaustion hit him.
“Hold on, chile . We here,” Julia said. She pushed the door open with her arm around his waist. Inside, a glare of blue and lavender energy lived. It forced Domencio to shield his eyes from the burning brightness, as intense as the sun.
“What is this?” he asked, with a hard squint to see through the light.
“Phoenix had Marcello make this, to save your father. It does not,” Julia replied in a grim voice. “It gets its power from the realm,” Julia replied in a grim voice. It’s ancient, full of secrets I never understood. Here. In this place. Here it rips through the dimensions of the universes, and it brought me back, beyond Legba’s reach. Well, this version of me, I reckon.”
“What’s it for?” Domencio asked.
Julia spoke in French, her voice hurried: “To drain the Draca’s power. I doubt Marcello knew what he was creating, but it’s the weapon Phoenix needs to weaken you and your brothers. It’s the reason your consiglieri are turning into monsters. It’s why Vittorio’s mind is unraveling, and his aging is speeding up ahead of the timeline for the curse. This is from the realm and was never meant for evil. If you want to save Darlene, you must shut it down.”
“I can’t get close,” he winced.
“You must, chile ,” she urged softly.
Domencio hesitated. “Will I lose you? The brothers. They need to hear this from you, Manan .”
Manan Julia smiled sadly. “Papa Legba has my soul, cher . I’m already lost. But it ain’t so for you. My boys can carry us into the new order. This... this abomination is Phoenix’s doing. We have to stop him.”
Steeling himself, Domencio stepped into the room. The searing energy clawed at his skin, but he lowered his hands and focused his power, forcing himself to see through the blinding light. At the center of the room, a glowing gem pulsed within a strange contraption.
“One more thing,” Julia whispered. “Do you love her, cher ?”
Domencio looked back at his mother. He frowned, surprised by the question. Love was not an emotion he entertained.
“Do you want to save her?” Julia asked.
He nodded.
“Then Vittorio must die. Turn it off, and you’ll have to choose—her or your father. He’ll be strong again, so you must be decisive in that decision. Either she kills him, or you let Vittorio kill her. There’s no other way.”
“I can’t do that,” Domencio whispered, voice tight with anguish.
“It’s the only way. Even then, she’s damned. She gave her soul to Papa Legba as a child in the void to have a friend in the darkness. She gave up everything for you, chile, and you never knew it. He won’t release her without taking another in her place. You’ll have to bargain. But first, you’re burning—turn it off. Your brother built this. Only he could stop it. That means you can too.”
Domencio kissed her forehead. He wished he had known this version of her before bitterness and years of subjugation decayed her heart. He’d find Phoenix before it was all said and done and make him pay.
“Go, cher ,” she whispered. “This moment is temporary, but we will meet again in the next.”
With a final push, she urged him forward. Domencio turned toward the light. His skin continued to burn, searing pain rippling through him as if he were walking into the heart of a volcano. But he pressed on, pushing deeper into the heat.
Sophie lunged, a blur of speed as she twisted into a roundhouse kick aimed at Sonya’s head. Sonya ducked just in time; flames erupted from her hand as she shot forward. She aimed a fiery punch toward Sophie’s chest. The fire cracked against Sophie’s side, sending her spinning mid-air.
But Sophie was quick, unnaturally quick. She twisted as she landed, barely phased, and grinned—a flash of white teeth and fangs in the darkness. “You’re nothing to him! He gave Lucio his Camilla as a sacrifice. He gave me his soul! I will take it with me down the drain!”
Before Sonya could respond, Sophie was on her again. Sonya blocked another flurry of blows, but each kick, each punch, felt like it carried the weight of Sophie’s rage—and her longing. The hatred was personal. Sonya could feel it seething with every strike. Their bodies moved with supernatural speed, trading blow for blow. Sophie’s laughter taunted her, sharp and mocking, as Sophie dodged a flame-coated kick from Sonya, twisting through the air like a dancer.
Sophie sneered, her hand crackled with dark energy as she drove it into Sonya’s stomach. The impact sent Sonya flying backward, her back slammed down against the forest floor. The wind was knocked from her lungs and the forest seemed to close in around her. For a second, everything went black.
But Sonya wasn’t finished. She couldn’t be.
With a scream of defiance, Sonya shot up. Flames burst from her hands and arced through the air. The fire lashed out like whips, catching Sophie off guard and scorching her pale skin. Sophie screamed, enraged, her face twisted into a mask of fury.
“Shakespeare!” Sophie shrieked, her body flickering in and out of sight as she tried to avoid the fire, each movement filled with desperate rage.
Sonya frowned. Not sure what she was seeing. Fueled by her desperation to save Darlene and Shakespeare, she charged in after Sophie, her fists ablaze. She landed a blow squarely to Sophie’s chest, flames licking at her skin, burning away the remnants of her unnatural life.
But as Sophie fell back, Sonya could see it—the awakening awareness on Sophie’s face, and a deep profound sadness in her eyes, the ghost of a love that had long died within her was now there in this creature Phoenix had created, before she exploded in a fiery ball of blue and lavender light.
In the same breath, Shakespeare twisted Raven’s head with all his strength. The force tore through the weakened stitches that held it to his body. His longtime friend and brother in the Fratelli began to flicker. Shakespeare barely noticed. He was fueled with grief mixed in with rage because through it all he heard the death of Sophie and would have to mourn her all over again. Mad with guilt over his current actions, he ripped Raven’s head from his shoulders. Raven’s decapitated form crumbled, the magic that animated him breaking apart like a shattered mirror, then ignited into a fireball of an explosive blue and lavender light.
Phoenix roared in anger. He would have charged at Sonya and Shakespeare but froze. He turned and looked at the villa. His eyes stretched in horror. The blue and lavender light blasted through every window before it extinguished.
Confused, Shakespeare and Sonya glanced at each other from across the forest. Then to Phoenix, who was now enraged. The Phoenix shot straight up into the sky as if blasted out of a cannon.
“I’m going after him!” Shakespeare said.
“No!”
“Defend Darlene. We can’t let Phoenix go. Somehow, he’s causing all of this!” Shakespeare shouted.
“Take me with you! Whatever he is, you can’t win alone. Take me. I’m the Defender of the Pain. I will help you bring him down. That is how I will save Darlene.” She marched through the forest toward him. Shakespeare was looking toward the smoking ashes where Sophie once was.
Sonya grabbed his face and made him look at her. Not what was left of Sophie. “I didn’t understand why the guardians would mate with the darkness, why I had to choose you. Kaida is in me, but she doesn’t control me. These are lessons I must learn on my own. And what I have learned is you and me, together can defeat anything. Especially Phoenix.”
Shakespeare pulled her into his arms and held her. She held on to him tight. And before she could speak, they were shot up toward the heavens toward their fate.
Domencio’s eyes snapped open. He lay flat on his back. The air in the room had become thick with smoke. It didn’t take long to realize the smoke was rising from his own body. He glanced down—his skin charred, burnt to the bone, but rapidly it healed with vampiric speed.
In his hand, he held a gem. It sparkled instead of glowing a sapphire blue, swirling with lavender. It had a cooling feel to it, feminine energy. A jewel—from a necklace, a ring… or a crown?
The gem pulsed, flooding him with renewed strength. He could only imagine the opposite effect it would have on Lucio, trapped in his dark sleep. Domencio stood. He shook the ash from his body, his charred skin sloughing off like dust.
With a thought, he was clothed. He mirrored Darlene’s imitation of him. He clenched the gem in his hand and marched out of the room. It was time to stop her.